Donaldson Reflects on a Career in Planning
As the end of 2014 approaches, and thoughts turn to fresh starts and New Year’s resolutions, there is at least one person at the planning commission who is making plans for a major life change.
On December 31, Mark Donaldson, MPC’s Executive Director since 2005, will close the book on his professional life and ring in 2015 as a new retiree.
After growing up in Tracy, Minnesota—an area famous for Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Walnut Grove and Garrison Keillor’s fictional Lake Wobegon—Donaldson earned a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, followed by a Master of Regional Planning degree from The Pennsylvania State University.
In 1976, Donaldson landed his first job out of grad school, working for the Minnesota Environmental Quality Council on an environmental impact study on potential copper and nickel mining in the northeastern part of the state.
"Thirty-five years after completing a really good project, they are still arguing about copper and nickel mining in Minnesota!" Donaldson said, shaking his head and grinning.
He took a break from planning in the 1980s to help in the family building supply business back in Tracy and later to work for a major homebuilder in the Twin Cities. But, Donaldson wanted to be a planner, even if it meant leaving his beloved Minnesota. In 1990, he took a job with the Golden Crescent Regional Planning Commission in Victoria, Texas and has devoted himself to planning ever since.
After stops in Glenwood Springs, Colorado and three more places in Texas—Denton, Plano, and Dallas—Donaldson landed in Knoxville, as MPC’s Executive Director, in 2005. His career has taken him from the prairies of southwestern Minnesota to the coastal plains of south Texas, from the quintessential small town of Tracy to the metropolis of Dallas-Ft. Worth, from the western slopes of the Rockies to the western edges of the Smokies. And while he won’t commit to a favorite place among those, it is telling that he and his wife, Pat, will continue to call Knoxville home after retirement.
With a body of work that spanned nearly a decade at MPC, Donaldson has no trouble pinpointing the things that make him proud when he looks back at his time here.
"Keeping the doors open through the great recession without requiring anyone to give up their job is perhaps my greatest accomplishment," he said.
"MPC has continued to complete all of its duties, while striking off on some entrepreneurial efforts to enhance services and provide additional revenues. The ability of the staff to nimbly shift from project to project and find work has been remarkable.”
As far as specific projects go, he takes pride in the fact that the Hillside and Ridgetop protection plan could be fine-tuned to the point that nearly identical versions were adopted by City Council and County Commission. And, of course, he is proud of PlanET, the regional planning effort that he calls "an enormous job well done.”
While there are many things he will miss about going to the office each day—like the constant deadlines that help him stay on track and get things done—Donaldson plans to wake up smiling on the first his day of retirement and then delve into home improvement projects, go for a good walk, or hit the golf course if the weather cooperates. But, before he waves goodbye to MPC, there’s one more thing he wants everyone to know:
"The people who have served on the planning commission and the MPC staff that have supported them are the most underappreciated and undervalued resource in the region. I am proud to have served both."
